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TEDYUSCUNG 


Indian Chief 












THE 

CITY OF PENN 

BEING A 

BRIEF BUT COMPLETE 
ACCOUNT OF 

THE HISTORY OF 
PHILADELPHIA 

FROM 

1683 TO I908 




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WILUAM PENN 
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3 



THE CITY OF PENN 


In the month of October, 1682, there entered 
the mouth of the Delaware River and sailed past 
its fertile banks, the ship “Welcome,” three hun¬ 
dred tons, Captain Robert Greenway, Master, just 
ending a weary and painful voyage from England. 
A fairly quick passage for the time, of fifty-three 
days, had been made doubly hazardous by the preva¬ 
lence of small-pox which cost the lives of one-third 
of the ship’s company, numbering about one hun¬ 
dred persons. They were chiefly solid burghers and 
yeoman, men of standing and estate, most of whose 
servants had been sent over in other vessels, and 
were all Quakers, or in sympathy with that sect, 
and companions and colonists of William Penn. 

For the “Welcome” was bringing the founder 
of a great State. His first landing was made at 
New Castle, then in his own province, on the 27th 
of October, 1682, at a point now marked by a suit¬ 
able monument. 



Ship “Welcome’’ 





































Date of 

Penn’s 

Landing 


Riding to Upland, he passed the first night in his 
new colony with Robert Wade, at “Essex House/’ 
a favorite lodging place for travellers going south. 
Wade, who was a Quaker, had come over with 
Colonel Fenwick in 1675, and was an authority on 
the country. The Governor issued a call for a 
meeting of Court for November 2nd, and passed the 
interval with his Quaker friends at Upland (now 
Chester). 

There is no positive information as to what 
time Penn landed in Philadelphia. The most au¬ 
thoritative record is that of the Society of Friends, 
which says:— 

“At a Monthly Meeting the 8th, 9th 
month, (November), 1682. At this time 
Governor Penn and a multitude of Friends 
arrived here, and erected a city called 
Philadelphia, about half a mile from Shack- 
amaxon, where meetings, etc., were estab¬ 
lished.” 

The favorite tradition of Penn’s landing in 
Pennsylvania represents him, a portly, middle-aged 
personage, approaching the Delaware’s green and 
wooded banks in a sumptuous barge, and extending 
his paternal protection to the native Indians who 
greet him. In point of fact he was an active man 
of thirty-eight, in the prime of life, and the cir- 


Date of 

Penn’s 

Landing 



( 4 ) 


Seal of 1683 



cumstances of his arrival at his beloved city, be¬ 
yond the meagre hints left us, are veiled in mystery. 

For years before Penn’s coming, there had been £ ^ 
settlements of various nationalities of white traders Settlements 
all along the Delaware, from the “Falls” to its 
mouth. These traders had a favorite landing place 
at Coquannock, the Indian name for the “Place of 
Tall Pines.” It is said that in 1678 the “Shield,” 
first to venture so far up the river as Burlington, 

New Jersey, had gone unduly close to the bank, and 
the tackling of the little vessel had caught in the 
overhanging growth of the forest as she passed. 

Certain curious passengers had closely noted the 
spot, “whereupon some on board remarked that it 
would be a fine spot for a town.” 

The vision of the observant passenger was now 
taking shape, for within three years later came the « B j ue 
first Philadelphians. At the landing place at Co- Anchor” 
quannock, one, Captain William Dare, originally a 
New England settler who had come to New Jersey 
with the current of settlement which followed the 
Boston persecutions, kept a tavern, known as the 
“Blue Anchor.” It was a little brick building, six¬ 
teen feet front by thirty-six feet long, and stood 
directly in the middle of what is now Front Street, 
one hundred and forty-six feet north of what was 
then, and still is, Dock Street. In front of the 
tavern was the primitive wharf, at which William 
Penn came ashore on his arrival from Chester, 



The “ Shield *’ 




and which he erected into “a public landing place 
for the inhabitants of Philadelphia forever.” 

The tavern was sold by Dare, January 18th, 
1682 (new style 1683) to the wealthy and influ¬ 
ential Colonel Edward Hill, of Shirley, on the James 
River, Virginia, who “29 of ye 9 month, 1684,” 
conveyed it for one hundred pounds sterling, to 
Griffith Jones, of Philadelphia, who held it until 
1686. It was then bought by George Bartholomew, 
a carpenter, who moved it back from the street and 
mortgaged it to Griffith Jones, and soon after dying 
insolvent, his wife reconveyed the property to Grif¬ 
fith Jones, who in 1690 sold it, together with other 
property, to Thomas Budd, who gradually removed 
Budd’s Row the old buildings adjoining, and in or before 1696, 
erected a row of brick houses, with timbered frames, 
known for years as “Budd’s Row,” into the northern¬ 
most of which the “Blue Anchor” tavern was re¬ 
moved. John F. Watson, the local historian, (who 
thought that he wrote of the original house), says,— 
“This landing house, called the “Blue Anchor,” was 
the southernmost of ten houses of like dimensions, 
begun about the same time and called Budd’s Long 
Row. They had to the eye the appearance of 
brick houses, although they were actually framed 
with wood, and filled in with small bricks, bearing 
the appearance of having been imported.” The 
tavern, much smaller than the original house, was 
really the third “Blue Anchor” known at the time 

( 6 ) 



“Blue Anchor” Tavern 


of the Revolution as the “Boatswain and Call,” at 
138 South Front Street (old numbering). It was 
pulled down early in the nineteenth century, and 
in later years, another “Blue Anchor,” on Dock 
Street succeeded it. To-day the great wharves of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company cover the site, and 
only the intent and curious passenger, marking a 
slight depression in the grade of Water Street some¬ 
what over one hundred feet north of Dock, will re¬ 
flect that this must have been the shelving bank 
forming the pathway over which William Penn 
passed from his landing to the “Blue Anchor” tavern, 
in the year of our Lord, 1682. 

Some English Friends who had come over to the 
Jersies before William Penn, with one or two other shackamaxon 
families, by 1682 had grouped themselves together 
into a little Quaker village at Shackamaxon, near 
the native elms about Thomas Fairman’s house,— 
easily the finest house then in the colony. To this 
hospitable roof William Penn betook himself after 
his official landing had been made at Dock Creek, 
and the “Welcome’s” passengers had been refreshed 
at the “Blue Anchor” tavern. Thomas Fairman had 
lodged the Deputy Governor, Markham, and Penn’s 
Commissioners, William Haige and Thomas Holme 
during the previous year. He gave up his house 
to the entertainment of the Governor and his official 
family, on their arrival. The chief Quaker meet¬ 
ing of the colony had been held here for some time 

( 7 ) 



Thomas Fftirman’s House 


and it now became the meeting-place for the early 
Pennsylvania Assemblys. 

Penn and Full °f benevolence as was Penn, we expect 

the Indians to find him at once turning to the natives, following 
up his letters from England to the Indians, and his 
careful study of their character made under diffi¬ 
culties and at a distance, by promptly meeting them 
in consultation. In this we are not disappointed. 
The historic belt of Wampum carefully cherished 
at the rooms of the Pennsylvania Historical So¬ 
ciety to-day, and the painting by West of the Treaty 
under the famous elm at Shackamaxon, are me¬ 
morials of the peaceful policy which was pursued 
by the Quakers whenever they came in contact with 
the aborigines. There is no foundation in actual 
fact for the scene under the elm, which was painted 
in England from descriptions of similar occur¬ 
ences. But it is typical of the facts, and that there 
was a conference at that place and more than one, is 
undoubtedly true. Even the speech of Penn to the In¬ 
dians twenty years later,—the first whose text we 
have recorded,—may have been in substance what he 
said then. Pennsylvania was obtained for the Eng¬ 
lish by no one treaty, but the peace pipe was smoked 
and the promise of friendship made as truly as 
though the picturesque scene was a fact. 

It was already cold weather when the “Wel¬ 
come's” passengers arrived, and Penn hastened to 
prepare for housing the thousand new comers who 

( 8 ) 



Treaty Tree 



had preceded or accompanied him, and the five hun¬ 
dred about to arrive, for so great was the response 
in England to the skill of his advertisement and the 
invitations to religious freedom, that twenty-three 
ships, (one every sixteen days) reached the Dela¬ 
ware in 1682; and Penn wrote Lord North, Septem¬ 
ber, 1683:—“Since last summer we have had about 
sixty sail of great and small shipping, which is a 
good beginning,”—and to the Marquis of Halifax 
about the same time:—“I must without vanity say 
that I have led the greatest colony into America 
that ever any man did upon private credit, and the 
most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are 
to be found among us.” 

All these people wanted their lands at once 
laid off, and to begin building. For a time some dug 
holes or caves in the dry banks of the two rivers, 
Schuylkill and Delaware, propping the earth with 
timbers and hanging their pots and kettles at the 
entrance, thus speedily providing a “half-fenced” 
camp which was reasonably comfortable if not lux¬ 
urious. The first Philadelphian, John May, born 
in one of these crude houses of English parents, 
saw the light where stood what was later known as 
the “Penny Pot” tavern. To him John Penn pre¬ 
sented a lot of ground and he was known during 
the eighty-five years of his life as “The First-born.” 
By 1683 there were three hundred and fifty-seven 
houses in Philadelphia, and the “City of Homes” 


Housing the 
Newcomers 


The First 
Born 


( 9 ) 


had become a fact. To the “Free Society of Trad¬ 
ers” Penn wrote full of praise of his new province, 
even finding its water (!) and its climate agreeable. 
He modified his opinion of the climate later when he 
wrote Lord North,—“The weather often changeth 
without notice, and is constant almost in its incon¬ 
stancy.” Thus the city grew, and in 1687, Samuel 
Carpenter built what for nearly two centuries was 
known as the “Slate Roof House.” It stood on the 
corner of Second Street and Morris alley, where to¬ 
day stands the Chamber of Commerce, and was long 
much the finest house in the city. Samuel Carpenter 
made it over to the use of William Penn and his 
wife Hannah, on the Governor’s second visit to the 
* he . province in 1699, and in it the Governor often met 
his Assembly. Here too m that year was born Penn’s 
son John, known always as “The American,” who 
died in England. Here also, James Logan, Penn’s 
Secretary and Deputy Governor, made his official 
residence; and in 1702 entertained Lord Cornbury; 
and here also lived Governor Hamilton. Through 
the period of the revolution it became a boarding 
house, and many great men were entertained by the 
landladies, Mrs. Howell and Mrs. Graydon. Its 
destruction in 1867 was an unpardonable act on the 
part of a great city. 

Nothing was needed further than that the city, 
thus prosperously and uniquely started—no modern 
boom of Western growth has ever rivalled it— 

( 10 ) 



“ Slate Roof House 





should become an organized government; and ac¬ 
cordingly we find a Minute of the Provincial Council, Organized 
dated 26th of 5 Mo., 1684, to the effect that “Thos. overnmel 
Lloyd, Thos. Holme, Wm. Haighe were appointed 
to draw up a charter of Philadelphia, to be made a 
Borough, consisting of a Mayor and six Aldermen, 
and to call to ye assistance any of ye Council.” 

There is no record that this committee ever acted; 
and the minutes of the Provincial Council are lost 
or destroyed for 1691 and 1692,—the former the 
year of Penn’s charter to the city. In it the Gover¬ 
nor declared: “I have by virtue of the King’s Let¬ 
ters Patent, erected that said town into a borough 
and do, by these presents, erect the said town and 
borough into a city.” Humphrey Murray was the 
city’s mayor. The charter of 1691,—for years lost 
to sight and only recently recovered—remained in 
force until superseded by that of 1701. This Pro¬ 
prietary Charter,—called by the city’s historians 
“mediaeval” because its form made it a close cor¬ 
poration,—held until 1789. 

When in 1718, William Penn died at Ruscombe, 
his Buckinghamshire home in England, his life had Death of 
touched six reigns. Born in 1644, before the execu- Penn 
tion of Charles I. (1649), he had lived through the 
protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and the reigns of 
Charles II., James II., William and Mary, Queen Anne 
and the first four years of George I. Not in Lon¬ 
don, nor yet in his own but his ungrateful Philadel- 


( 11 ) 



Seal of 1701 







phia, was he most mourned, but in the trackless 
forests of Pennsylvania, where the simple Indian, 
as mindful of benefits as remorseless in revenge, 
sorrowed for that “Brother Onas,” who had long 
been his sincere friend. 

With the charter of 1701 really began the actual 
Fair * municipal history of Philadelphia. The city fathers 
were empowered to erect a gaol and a court house, 
and to hold two market days each week, as well 
as two fairs annually. These latter lasted until the 
time of the Revolution. The old form of proclama¬ 
tion of these fairs,—which were of great import¬ 
ance in the Province, from a commercial point of 
view, until the introduction of shopkeeping demoral¬ 
ized them,—ran thus:— 

“O yes, and Silence is commanded while 
the Fair Proclaiming upon Pain of Impris¬ 
onment. 

A. B. esq., Mayor of the City of Phila¬ 
delphia doth hereby strictly charge in the 
King’s Name, and command all Persons 
trading and negotiating within this fair to 
keep the King’s Peace. 

And that no person or persons what¬ 
soever presume to set up any Booth or Stall 
for the vending of Strong Liquors within 
this Fair. 

And that no person or persons pre- 

( 12 ) 



Bank Meeting House 









sume to bear or carry any unlawful 
Weapons, to the Terrour or Annoyance of 
His Majesty’s Subjects, or to gallop or 
strain Horses within the built parts of this 
city. 

And if any person shall receive any 
hurt or injury from another, let him re¬ 
pair to the Mayor, here present, and his 
wrongs shall be redressed. 

This Fair to continue three days and 
no longer. God save the King.” 

The oldest place of worship in Pennsylvania 
was the Swedes Church at Wicacoe, where, as early Hou#e * of 
as 1677, was a block house used as a church. The Wor8h,p 
present ancient building, begun in 1698, was dedi¬ 
cated as a church on July 2, 1700, and was much 
the finest in the colony. The first Quaker meeting 
houses, of the simplest kind, were built even be¬ 
fore the inhabitants had left their original caves 
on the river banks; but by 1685 a “boarded meet¬ 
ing house,” near the Delaware was supplanted by a 
brick one at Centre Square (Now Penn Square) 
and the old house on the “Bank,” by the brick one 
at Front and Race Streets, long known as the “Bank 
Meeting,” built 1703. 

Under a provision of the Charter of Penn 
from Charles II., the parish of Christ Church was 
organized in 1695, with a quaint early hip-roofed 



Old Swede’s Church 


house for its worship, and a bell on a post before it, 
ChrUt until a belfry was put up in 1708. The present 
urc interesting church is an evolution of the earlier one, 
and has been the scene of much national history. 
Governor Keith placed in it the “Governor’s Pew/' 
and that of Washington has been restored and 
marked with a plate. In 1711, and still more, in 
1725, the church was enlarged, the steeple built 
and an organ imported from England. Its remodel¬ 
ling was so complete that a new corner stone was 
laid, April 27, 1727, from which time properly 
dates the present edifice. The bells were brought 
over in 1754 by Captain Budden, who charged no 
freight upon them, and they rang out a merry chime 
of greeting to him ever after when his vessel ar¬ 
rived in port. At the time of the Revolution they, 
and the precious Liberty Bell, were transported to 
Bethlehem to avoid seizure by the British. The 
spire, bearing the Crown of the King of England, 
was struck by lightning in June, 1777,—an omen 
hailed by the patriots with rejoicing. 

The Presbyterians under Francis Makemie, in 
the store-house of the Barbadoes Company at Sec¬ 
ond and Chestnut Streets organized for worship in 
August, 1692, sharing the building with the Bap¬ 
tists, whose minister, Rev. John Watts, travelled 
from the Pennypack every other Sunday to officiate. 
In 1698 the Rev. Jedediah Andrews was permanently 
settled over the Presbyterians who in 1704 built the 



(14) 


First Christ Church 


first church, known from the fine trees surround¬ 
ing it, as the “Buttonwood Church/’ on the south 
side of Market Street, between Second and Third, 
at White Horse Alley. 

St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church dates from 
1732, but through most of the century, mass had 
been celebrated in private houses, with a public ser¬ 
vice, under the broad toleration of William Penn, 
recorded in 1708. 

Massachusetts was eighteen years after her set¬ 
tlement without a printed book or paper, and New New8papers 
York, seventy-three; and Virginia’s Governor 
(Berkeley) had rejoiced that the province in his 
time was without the disturbance of the press. But 
William Bradford, of Leicester, had come out with 
William Penn, and set up his press and printed his 
almanac in 1686. His chronology began with the 
deluge, “3979 years before the Almanac,” conclud¬ 
ing with “the Beginning of Government here by the 
Lord Penn five years before the Almanac,” where¬ 
upon the Quaker Council compelled him to blot 
over his “Lord’* Penn with a “three M quad!” 

Bradford’s life, mixed up with political and re¬ 
ligious controversy, was far from humdrum. He Bradford, 
went to live in New York in 1693, whither we can- the Pr,nter 
not follow him. His grandson was the first Post¬ 
master in Philadelphia, in 1728, when Bradford’s 
own house was the Postoffice. In 1737, Benjamin 



Present Christ Church 


Franklin was Postmaster, the office also being lo¬ 
cated in his private house. Since then, the Phila¬ 
delphia Postoffice has been located in more than 
twenty places, and has been presided over by thirty- 
one Postmasters. 

The history of the newspaper press of Philadel¬ 
phia begins with the first issue of the American 
Weekly Mercury , on December 22, 1719, the third 
journal to be published in the colonies. Its editor 
and publisher was Andrew Bradford, son of Wil¬ 
liam of the Almanac, whose print in 1686 of the 
Kalendarium Pennsylvaniense was the first piece of 
printing in the province. Daniel Leeds’ Almanac 
began in 1687, but these were not journals. Speci¬ 
mens of them, rare and curious, may be examined 
in the Library of the Historical Society of Pennsyl¬ 
vania. The first journal of the American colonies 
had been the Boston News Letter of April 24, 1704. 
The Boston Gazette, December 19, 1719, was but two 

First Daily da y s older than the P hi l adel P hia P a P er - On Decem- 
Newspaplr ber 21, 1784, Dunlap and Claypoole published in 
Philadelphia The American Daily Advertiser, the 
first daily paper in America. The city also saw 
the first penny newspaper, The Cent, 1830, by Dr. 
Christopher Columbus ConwelL 

The founder did not let any time elapse before 
providing for education in his new colony for the 
day after Christmas, 1683, a quaint Council minute 
tells of the establishment of Enoch Flower’s school, 

(16) 





where a boarding pupil might learn to read, write, 
and speak English, and to “Cast” (arthmetic) for 
“tenn pounds for one whole year.” In 1689, under 
Penn’s directions to Thomas Lloyd, was founded the 
first public school in the colony, flourishing to-day 
as the “William Penn Charter School.” 

The modern policeman is the creature of a legal 
statute. The old time constable was a willing neigh- p^ t c e e ct;on 
bor. The first watchman was appointed in 1700, 
by the Provincial Council, and he had the entire in¬ 
fant city under his personal care. It was his duty 
to go through the town at night ringing a bell to cry 
out the hour and the state of the weather, and to 
inform the constables of any disorder or fire. In 
1704, the city was divided into ten precincts, with 
a watchman and a constable in each. The “Watch,” 
not a permanent body, was levied from the able- 
bodied householders, who were each supposed to 
take a turn at serving or to furnish a substitute. 

With several changes, the system went on until 1749, 
when Common Council applied for an Act of As¬ 
sembly establishing and paying for by tax, “a 
regular and stated Watch, as is done in London.” 

This was accomplished in 1750, at which time the 

city undertook to light the streets with lamps and Lighting 

to pay for their “lighting, trimming and snuffing.” 

Gas was first made in Pennsylvania in 1796, but not 
until 1855 was the city lighted by it, after the favor¬ 
able report of an expert sent to Europe to investi- 


( 17 ) 



Watch Box 
















gate, and quiet the ridiculous protests of otherwise 
intelligent citizens, who feared damage to life and 
property by its introduction. 

Streets An old English law had compelled the inhabitants 

to furnish labor for highway repairs, but the streets 
were long in abominable order. In 1718 many people 
voluntarily paved “from ye kennel to ye middle of ye 
streets before their respective tenements with pebble 
stones.” 

Danger threatened, too, from fire in the great 
chimney in which the citizens cooked in enormous 
pots and kettles suspended from cranes above the 
fire, where blazed the huge logs, the baking ovens 
Fire being built into the chimney stacks. As early as 

Protection 1695 an act imposed a fine upon any householder who 
permitted his chimney to take fire, and also pro¬ 
vided that he must keep in his house a swab, at 
least twelve feet long, and two leathern buckets, 
to be always in readiness in case of fire, under pen¬ 
alty of ten shillings. All persons were also prohibited 
from smoking tobacco, on the streets of the town by 
day or night. Leathern buckets, hooks, &c., were 
owned by the city, but there was no organization of 
a fire department. In 1718 a fire engine, imported 
from England by Abraham Bickley, was bought 
from him by the city for fifty pounds. By 1733 a 
more complete system was arranged, and fire en¬ 
gines of the early hand type were stationed in sev¬ 
eral places about town—at the “Great” Meeting House 

(18) 



First Hose Carriage 



of the Quakers, at Second and Market Streets, on 
“Francis Jones’ lot,” Front and Walnut Streets, and 
the old Bickley engine in a corner of the Baptist 
meeting house yard, at Second and Arch Streets. 

In December, 1733, after Benjamin Franklin had es¬ 
tablished his Pennsylvania Gazette he began agitat¬ 
ing on the subject of fire protection. As a result 
of his efforts, in December, 1736, the “Union Fire 
Company” was established. This was followed in 
1738 by the “Fellowship,” in 1742 by the “Hand-in- 
Hand;” in 1743 by the “Heart-in-Hand;” and in 1747 
by the “Friendship.” Others came later and the 
middle of the century saw six fire companies in ex¬ 
istence. 

For a long time, the inhabitants of the Quaker Amusements 
town had been content with simple amusements, as 
when “The Lion, King of Beasts,” was exhibited 
in Water Street, and in 1740 a camel and later a magic 
lantern. But the year 1738 marked the arrival in 
town of the English dancing master, Theobald 
Hackett, and soon after, the use of the small-sword 
and other “gentlemanly accomplishments” were 
taught, to the distress of such people as Samuel 
Foulk, who wrote that so far from being accom¬ 
plishments, “they are diabolical.” However, it is cer¬ 
tain that there was a dancing assembly so early as 
1740. In 1748 the Assembly was fairly organized, 
and the list of members for that year exists. It *is 



still Philadelphia’s most exclusive social function. 
“Rigadoons,” “paspies,” “masquerades,” and the 
Spanish fandango were fashionable, and later the 
stately minuet. The instruments of music were the 
mandolin, flute, horn, dulcimer, and above all the 
violin, until the first piano built in this country 
was made by John Behrent in Third Street, who in 
1775, announced that he had produced “an extra¬ 
ordinary instrument by the name of the piano-forte, 
made of mahogany, being of the nature of a harpsi¬ 
chord, with hammers and several changes.” 

Thus developed the civic life of the community, 
Social Life an( j luxury and wealth came to the populous and 
growing town. Fashion invaded the quiet haunts of 
Quakerism, and vainly the Friends protested against 
the “immodest fashion of hooped petticoats,” slit 
and skirted coats, powdered wigs, and many another 
sign of the gay Parisian life, which, in belated bits, 
crept item by item across the water as the vessels 
came in belonging to the great merchants who lived 
along the front of the town near their own wharves, 
and who controlled much of the life, political, social 
and commercial of the middle colonies. Chariots 
and chaises brought the wives and daughters of the 
gay folk on “Society Hill” to examine, and 
“cheapen,” as the phrase in London went, the goods 
that were unpacking on the wharves as each new 
arrival broke bulk. In vain, also, in the end was the 
protest of the Quakers against the playhouses and 

( 20 ) 



Stenton, Home of James Logan 


actors, although with more success against the lot¬ 
teries which were a recognized means of raising 
church and state funds. “Poor Richard,” too, pro¬ 
tested in his Almanac against the pride of life, al¬ 
though Richard himself, when sent to London, proved 
a bon-vivant with the best. 

The spirit of Benjamin Franklin pervaded the 
life of the city and colony throughout the eighteenth 
century as no one personality ever did. He had 
wandered into Philadelphia from New York in 1723, 
and made his entry into the town in the way now 
familiar to every school child, with a roll under each 
arm and munching another, strolling to the Quaker 
meeting house; ogling his future wife as he went, 
and entering the meeting and sleeping through the 
long service. He first made himself felt in the 
civic life of the community as a printer, the trade 
which he learned under the eccentric Samuel Keimer, 
and in which he so soon distanced his master! To 
him, Philadelphia owes its first library, its first col¬ 
lege, the American Philosophical Society, and num¬ 
berless inventions for economy and convenience, like 
the Franklin stove, the lightning-rod, and the fire 
companies. Franklin the diplomat in France where 
he was adored, and in England, where he was in¬ 
sulted, is one of the greatest figures on the pages 
of American History. He died in 1790, and the 
simple slab which covers his grave is more impres¬ 
sive than many a great marble shaft. 

( 21 ) 



Franklin’s Grave 


Mutterings 
of the 
Revolution 


Quaker 
Tea Party 


The first mutterings of the storm which broke 
a quarter of a century later had been audible to an 
attentive ear even in 1750. A crisis was reached 
by the middle of the century in the Pennsylvania 
Assembly, when the agitation for the militia tax 
to support the border war then going on, and for 
the suppression of riots, &c., on the frontier, re¬ 
sulted in the departure from the Pennsylvania As¬ 
sembly of 1756 of every Quaker member. In 1765 
Franklin was in London, concluding what had been 
his unsuccessful efforts to avert war with England 
as a result of the injustice of the Stamp Act, and 
more unpleasant and heavier became the burden 
following its repeal and the brief rejoicing of 1766, 
when the British Parliament levied its tax on tea. 
Comfortable, luxury-loving Philadelphia, with its 
many delightful mansions, now historic, on the out¬ 
skirts of the city, in a spasm of patriotism, now set 
about curtailing its previous ideas of lavish pro¬ 
viding, encouraged by the “Farmer’s Letters” of 
John Dickinson. 

Then came the day when there was a Quaker 
Tea Party in Philadelphia, and the tea-ship “Polly,” 
Captain Ayers, reached the Delaware with her un¬ 
desired cargo. With a dignity which was wanting 
in the later and much more celebrated incident at 
Boston soon after, the citizens of Philadelphia, after 
a mass meeting at the State House, sent her back 
to England within twenty-four hours with unbroken 


e 


(22) 


cargo, and but a few hours delay in which to obtain 
fresh provisions! 

In the spring of 1774, the port of Boston was Pau j Revere 
closed by Parliament, and Paul Revere, since known 
for his famous ride to Lexington, brought the news 
to Philadelphia. From that time on the history of 
Philadelphia is that of the storm-centre of the Revo¬ 
lution. The first Continental Congress met in 1774 
in Carpenters’ Hall, the second, in the old State 
House; and still the people hoped for an adjustment 
with England, and for the avoidance of war. At 
last, on the 24th April, 1775, a hard-run horse was 
halted at the City Tavern, his weary rider bringing 
to the citizens the news of the battle of Lexington. 

Soon after were signed the Resolutions offered by 
Richard Henry Lee, declaring the colonies “Free and 
Independent States,” which were read to the people 
July 8th, in the State House yard by John Nixon; 
that official acceptance of which July 4th, 1776, 
made the old State House , once the heart of Penn¬ 
sylvania, now the heart of a great nation known 
forever as “Independence Hall.” 

On June 14, 1777, Congress resolved “that the 
flags of the thirteen United States be thirteen The FIag 
stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be 
thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a 
new constellation.” It was the fashion to name 
astronomical discoveries, then frequent, in compli¬ 
ment to happenings or dignitaries on the earth. 



British Stamp 






The 

Mischianza 


The German Bode had just named a constellation 
after Franklin’s printing press, and Rittenhouse, the 
Philadelphia astronomer naturally suggested the 
starry union of the flag as a new constellation, which 
of course it was, only in a metaphorical sense. The 
first new flag was made by Betsy Ross at No. 80 
Arch St. 

The British, under General Howe, occupied 
Philadelphia in the winter of 1777-8. Bradford’s 
Journal printed its last number on the 9th Septem¬ 
ber, and the Pennsylvania Gazette made its sad adieu 
next day. It was during the occupation by the Eng¬ 
lish, however, that the Quaker City became the scene 
of gay social diversions, ending with the wonderful 
Fete Champetre of Monday, May 18th, 1778, as a 
farewell to the departing English General,—an af¬ 
fair under the competent direction of the young and 
unfortunate Major Andre. The best account of this 
great pageant known as the “Mischianza,” by An¬ 
dre himself, was published in the Gentleman’s Maga¬ 
zine, for August, 1778. After the departure of the 
British, (just one month later) the town took on a 
cosmopolitan air, the presence of so many French 
friends and allies of America and of the Govern¬ 
ment, with its official display at the capital of the 
new country, serving to keep its society from re¬ 
lapsing into the early Quaker simplicity. The prog¬ 
ress of the city under the new Republic was great, 
whether viewed from a commercial, social or po- 



City Tavern 




litical standpoint. The capital of the United States 
until Congress removed to Washington in 1800, 
Philadelphia then and for years after was the most 
important city of the colonies. 

As the new century dawned, it saw a great Commerce 
increase of commerce. In 1805 Oliver Evans ex¬ 
hibited his steam carriage on Centre Square. He 
had suggested a land motor as early as 1773 and one 
for boats in 1778. A letter of the disappointed in¬ 
ventor, who may well rank with Fitch and Fulton, 
in the New York Commercial Advertiser , some years 
later had the following—which is now a fulfilled 
prophecy: 

“The time will come when people will travel 
in stages moved by steam engines at fifteen to 
twenty miles an hour. A carriage will leave Wash¬ 
ington in the morning, breakfast at Baltimore, dine 
at Philadelphia and sup at New York on the same 
day. Railways will be made of wood or iron, laid on 
smooth paths of broken stone or gravel, to travel 
as well by night as by day. A steam engine will 
drive a carriage one hundred and eighty miles in 
twelve hours, or engines will 'drive boats ten or 
twelve miles an hour, and hundreds of boats will 
so run on the Mississippi and other waters, as was 
prophesied thirty years ago (by Fitch),, but the 
velocity of boats can never be made equal to that of 
carriages upon rails, because the resistance of water 
is eight hundred times that of air. Posterity will 


(25) 



Betsy Ross House 











not be able to discover why the Legislature did not 
grant the inventor such protection as might have en¬ 
abled him to put in operation those great improve¬ 
ments sooner, he having neither asked money nor a 
monopoly of any existing thing.” 

Philadelphia, now at the front of the manufac- 
industnal ^ ur j[ n g interests of this country, owes much to the 
enterprise of Seth Craige, who in 1805 established 
his cotton-factory, the “Globe Mills,” Kensington, 
on the former site of a flour-mill belonging to the 
Penns, and long known as “The Governor’s grist¬ 
mill.” Mr. Craige’s factory was the first extensive 
one of its kind in Pennsylvania, and struggling 
through the various trade depressions incident to 
the war-like times, by 1812 it had become the largest 
concern of the kind in the United States. The various 
industries which were coming into prominence at this 
time led travellers and close observers to prophesy 
a great manufacturing future for the city,—a 
prophecy which has been remarkably fulfilled. 

Stephen Stephen Girard’s name lives in Philadelphia as 

Girard the f° un der of many charities and public works made 
possible by his successful mercantile career. Born in 
Bordeaux, France, May 21, 1750, he was a sailor at 
fourteen. Obtaining a Captain’s commission in 1773, 
he came the next year to New York, where for 
three years, in partnership with Thomas Randall, he 
traded to New Orleans and Port au Prince. In May, 
1777, he came to Philadelphia, and became a mer- 

(26) 



Steam Carriage 










chant, and for the rest of his life, except during 
the British occupancy, when he retired to Mount 
Holly, New Jersey, he did business and lived on 
Water Street, marrying in July, of the same year, 

Miss Mary Lumm. In June, 1812, the “Bank of the 
United States” came into his possession, while he 
still continued his mercantile interests. He died 
December 26, 1831, and was buried at Holy Trinity 
Roman Catholic Church, leaving the largest fortune 
then accumulated by any single man in America, 

(about $7,500,000). His public spirit was shown 
by the bequests for improvement in the Common¬ 
wealth of Pennsylvania; for improving the East 
front of the city on the Delaware; and above all in 
the founding of Girard College, which has grown Girard 
to be one of the greatest institutions in the coun- College 
try for the education of boys. 

The year after Girard’s death, on November 
23, 1832, Matthew W. Baldwin’s “Old Ironsides,” 
parent of American Locomotives, departed from 
Philadelphia on a perilous journey to Norristown, 
drawing at a top speed of thirty miles an hour sev¬ 
eral carriages in which were seated a few greatly 
excited passengers. The following notice appears in 
the Daily Advertiser: 

“The locomotive engine, (built by M. W. Bald¬ 
win, of this city), will depart daily, when the 
weather is fair, with a train of passenger cars. On 
rainy days , horses will be attached /” The Baldwin 


( 27 ) 


Locomotive Works and the Pennsylvania Railroad 
are the realization of the dreams of Evans and 
Baldwin. 


City 

Government 


“ Liberties” 


With the Revolution all Proprietary Charters 
were swept away, and Pennsylvania’s Legislature 
March 11th, 1789, granted to the City of Philadel¬ 
phia a charter which created it a modern munici¬ 
pality, in sharp contrast to the mediaeval form 
which had been for so long in force under that of 
Penn. The Act of February 2, 1854, incorporating 
the “City of Philadelphia” provided that the city, 
as limited by the Act of 1789, should include the 
County of Philadelphia. It thus abolished the 
original city limits, and included, together with the 
old city, the nine separately incorporated districts 
of Southwark, Northern Liberties, Kensington, 
Spring Garden, Moyamensing, Penn, Richmond, 
West Philadelphia and Belmont; the six boroughs of 
Germantown, Frankford, Manayunk, White Hall, 
Bridesburg, and Aramingo; and the thirteen town¬ 
ships of Passayunk, Blockley, Kingsessing, Roxbor- 
ough, Germantown, Bristol, Oxford, Lower Dublin, 
Moreland, Northern Liberties, (unincorporated), 
Byberry, Delaware and Penn. William Penn had 
called by the name of “Liberties,” certain lands lying 
on the North and West of the city, which were de¬ 
clared “Free Lots,” or “Liberty Land,” because the 
Proprietor gave the first purchasers of land in the 


(28) 



“ Old Ironsides’’ 





















colony, according to the extent of their purchase, 
a portion of land within these limits free of cost. 
The “concessions” of 1681 set aside a certain quantity 
of land for a “large town.” A special order to his 
commissioners October 14, 1681, directed them to lay 
out “ten thousand acres for a great town.” It then 
included the City and the Liberties. In October, 
1682, when Penn arrived, the “great town” was 
divided into two parts, the City, and the Liberties, 
of Philadelphia, of which the City contained 1,820 
acres, and the Liberties, 16,236. 

The Bullitt Bill of 1885, the last important 
change in the city’s Charter, made of Philadelphia 
a simpler problem, reducing to greater order the 
complicated machinery of her organization, and put¬ 
ting in the power of her Mayor authority as well as 
responsibility, which time has shown to have its 
evil as well as its good effects. 











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